Catching Fish

Catching Fish ARE WE FISHERS OF MEN?

Imagine you are Peter, a fisherman on the lake of Genneseret, who had fished all night but had caught nothing. Imagine what your reaction would be when Jesus asks you 'to put out into the deep'.  How would you respond to Jesus?

Are we fishers of men?  Do you love Jesus enough ourselves and desire others to find Him?

It seems to me that our own fishing equipment needs the following aspects:

1.             Love Jesus: we need to love Jesus with all of our heart. He needs to be our best friend, our lover, our guide.  We need to come to know Jesus and love Him. Knowing about Jesus through the teaching of the Church is an important hook, but our bait must be knowing Jesus and loving Him with our heart.

2.             Gospel: The Gospel helps us come to know what Jesus did, what He said and how we might apply it to our own lives. Coming to know the Gospel is to know and experience the Good News and as we know and experience it, we come to know and love Jesus more. 

3.             Prayer and Worship: If we are in love with Jesus, we want to spend time with Him.  We can spend time through personal prayer of which there are many types, and through worship, when we pray as a community through the Mass and the sacraments. We need both types of hooks-personal and community, otherwise our own fishing equipment is wanting. 

4.             Community and Communion: We need these important hooks since loving Jesus is like throwing a stone into water to create a ripple effect.  When we love Jesus, we create a ripple effect by sharing it in our relationships: family, work colleagues, parishioners and all those with whom we have contact. Refer back to this Gospel passage, Peter had to call to the others to help him bring in such a haul.

5.             Service and Mission: Loving Jesus is bringing Christ to the world- being His face, hands, voice, ears and feet to all we meet. Through our service we incorporate ourselves more closely with Him, and by bringing Christ to the world, we carry on the mission of Jesus.

Like Peter, let us throw our nets out into the deep just as Jesus asks of us.

May your catch be to overflowing.